


Auf ihrem Weg zum Horizont

by albion



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - 1980s, Alternate Universe - Historical, Berlin Wall, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Masturbation, Mentions of Violence, Minor Character Death, armin in west berlin, jean lives in east berlin, possibly historically inaccurate i'm sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-22
Updated: 2013-08-22
Packaged: 2017-12-24 06:44:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/936639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/albion/pseuds/albion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jean Kirschstein, Armin Arlert, and the Berlin Wall.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Auf ihrem Weg zum Horizont

**Author's Note:**

> The entire idea of this came from the mental image I had one day of Jean in 80s clothing climbing over the top of the Berlin wall.  
> There's some mentions of internalized homophobia in this piece because, well, it's the 1980s.
> 
> Recommended listening is "[99 Luftballons](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lur-SGl3uw8)" by Nena. The title is a lyric from the song and translates to "on their way to the horizon."

 

>  1986.

 

Jean is twelve years old when he sees it.

There’s a gap in the wall. A gap, where there are no Soviets with automatics and no police and no barbed wire and nothing; nothing to stop him from walking straight up to the concrete and placing his cheek against the rough, cool surface and praying.

Except he’s never been taught how to pray, and settles instead for whispering softly against the grey slabs.

“…is someone there?”

Jean launches himself back from the wall so fast he’s knocked straight onto his ass onto the pavement. He pushes himself up stiffly, brushing dirt from his too-loose trousers and frowning at the new scratches adorning his elbows.

“Is there someone there?” the voice asks again.

“H-hello?” he replies softly, worriedly. What if the person over there is a spy; what if they’ve been placed in the West to catch people trying to cross, oh god, oh _god-_

“How are you?”

The tone of voice catches him off guard.

“Um. I’m… doing well, I suppose.”

“What’s it like?”

“Excuse me?”

“What’s it like?”

“What’s what like?” Whoever this voice is, they don’t appear to be a spy so much as a curious little child, but Jean knows to always be wary.

“The Eastern side of the wall.”

Jean looks around. The Eastern side of the wall is blank, grey and completely dark at this time of night.

“Empty.”

“Empty? Are there no soldiers?”

“Not this part. I don’t know why. Mostly the entire thing is covered in barbed wire with at least twenty soldiers each yard ready to shoot anyone who gets too close.”

“Oh my god.” The voice sounds worried. “What if you get caught?”

Jean is surprised. “Why would you care? You’re on the Western side.”

“No one should have to live like that.”

There’s a long pause, and the longer Jean listens in the dark silence, the longer he can start to pick out the sound of someone breathing softly across the thin slice of concrete. “Who are you?”

“A friend.”

Jean snorts.

“What?” The voice sounds rather hurt.

“Forgive me for asking, but what on earth would a yank lover like you care about me?”

“I’m not a yank lover. I just happened to be born on this side of the wall. And I don’t suppose you love communism either; you just so happened to be born on the Eastern side.”

“Yeah… yeah I guess so.”

“So… what is it like? I’ve heard stories.”

“They’re probably all untrue.”

“ So what’s the truth then?”

“The truth is…” Jean bites his lip and rests his fingers in the cracks slowly appearing in the surface. Maybe if he pushed hard enough, he could melt right through and find himself in West Berlin. “The truth is I should probably be getting home before someone puts a bullet straight through my skull.”

“Oh.” The voice sounds disappointed. “I understand. Be careful.”

“Will-” Jean is about to say the word ‘see’ and then realizes that he can’t actually see anything, “Will you be here tomorrow night?”

“Sure,” and he imagines that he can see a smile adorning the face of a grey, shapeless blob, “I’ll be here. I always come here to walk at night, under the light of the streetlamps and the trees.”

“That sounds lovely.”

“I don’t suppose you have a lamp lit path with benches and trees on your side, huh?”

“Oh now you’re just being mean.”

The voice laughs softly, and then Jean can hear the rustling of someone getting up from the ground. “I’ll be here tomorrow. I hope I can talk to you again.”

“Yeah. Same here.”

And it’s only after he’s lying on his small bed in his cold house that Jean realizes he never asked the stranger’s name.

 

 

* * *

 

Jean was born in Soviet occupied East Berlin. He’s never been to the West, never been outside of Soviet control, never seen all the things that he’s heard about from his parents in soft whispers when they’re sure no one is listening in. He’s heard about America, about Italy, about London and Paris and the beauty of the Swiss Alps.

He’s never seen them.

French was the language of his crib, his mother tells him, but he can hardly understand it now. German is the language of everyday life, and Russian is the language of authority that he’s learnt to obey without even thinking about it.

 

* * *

 

“I’m here.”

“I am too.”

“You know, I never asked your name yesterday.”

“Oh! Yeah, I never did ask yours either. My name’s Armin.”

“Armin.”

“It’s sort of strange, I know. I think it comes from Arminius, who was a chieftain of the Germanic tribes. He defeated the Romans at the battle of Teutoberg forest, you know.”

Jean’s never even heard of his guy, but he’s not about to let this Armin fellow know that.

“I’m Jean.”

“Jean, huh.”

“Yeah.”

“Are you French?”

“I think so. Well, I mean I think my mother’s family came from there. Apparently she used to speak French to me as a baby, but I’ve forgotten most of it.”

“That sounds awful.”

“Well excuse you.”

“Oh I’m sorry it’s just... I don’t know. I guess I take some things for granted.”

“Like what?”

“Do you speak a lot of Russian over there? Or is it mainly German?”

“It’s like... a weird mix?”

“Oh.”

“What about you?”

“German, but we all learn English and French too.”

“Could you teach me some?”

“English or French?”

“Uh... both?”

“Sure.”

Jean walks away that night knowing how to say ‘hello’, ‘how are you?’ and ‘my name is jean’ in both languages.

 

* * *

 

Armin was born in West Berlin. He grew up listening to stories of the War from his grandfather, who fought in it, and stories of rationing from his parents, who lived through it. He grew up learning about the world and all the things in it, but was always eminently curious about the entirely different world only two blocks away from his house and separated by a long stretch of heavily chipped wall, decorated over time with endless rows of graffiti and bird poop in varying amounts.

His favourite song is Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Sound of Silence”, and he adores ABBA and The Beatles. He likes the Alfred Hitchcock film _Vertigo_ and the musical _Grease._

Jean’s never seen or heard any of them.

 

* * *

 

“Will you teach me some Russian?”

“Why?”

“Because I think it’d be nice to learn.”

“I doubt it.”

“Oh come on.”

“Fine, fine. Uh, hello is привет.”

“What? Say that again, sorry.”

“привет.”

Armin tries it around his mouth, and Jean tries hard not to laugh at the way his tongue mangles the sounds.

“Okay, try ‘goodbye.’ до свидания.”

“Oh God. I’m never going to get that.”

“I can stay here all night.”

“We both know you can’t.”

Jean laughs quietly, “Yeah, yeah I know. But try it.”

Armin tries it, and on the fourth time his mouth manages to form the word. Jean attempts not to burst in pride.

“I knew you could do it.”

 

* * *

 

“Where do you go at nights, Jean?”

“Out.”

“It’s not safe, darling.”

“I know, mother.”

“Then why do you do it?” his mother frowns over the basket of laundry she has perched on her hip, leering at what appears to be a stain on one of the shirts thrown haphazardly into it.

“Because I hate being stuck inside this house when I can be outside.”

She sighs, and turns away. “Just be careful Jean.”

“I’ll be careful.” Jean wishes he could promise more, but he cannot. He wishes he could take his mother away from this dingy house and settle her down in a big beautiful one with a veranda and an apple tree at the front. That’s how Armin’s described American houses to him, apparently he read all about it in a book, and they all have apple trees and big bay windows and lots and lots of free space for children to play and dogs to run around.

 

* * *

 

One day Jean comes up to the wall and says to Armin, “I’m thinking of dyeing my hair.”

Armin, leaning against his side of the wall with his legs drawn up to his chest, a copy of _The Great Gatsby_ perched on the tops of his knees, is surprised. “They have hair dye on your side?”

“Ha. Ha. Very funny.”

“Well, what colour?”

“I don’t know. I was thinking of maybe just bleaching the top.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well I wish I could see it when it’s done. If you don’t end up killing yourself by dipping your entire head into a bucket of bleach.”

“Marco’s helping me.”

“Who’s that?”

“My best friend.”

There’s a pause, and then Armin says in a small voice, “oh.”

“Oh?”

“I didn’t realize you had a best friend.”

“Is it a problem?”

“No, no! Of course not… it’s just…”

Armin falls silent, and for a while all Jean can hear is the faint sound of pages turning. Finally, Armin draws in a deep breath and speaks again. “I wish I had a best friend.”

“You don’t have many friends?”

“Not really. I’m too… weird for most of the boys at my school. They all like sports and wrestling and running around and I don’t.”

“I like sports. But you’re much more intelligent than I am. I think in the end you got a better deal.”

 

* * *

 

Marco dies one year after Armin and Jean first meet, on the twenty fourth of May, nineteen eighty seven.

He was attempting to cross the wall.

 

* * *

 

Jean comes that night to meet Armin, his face streaked with tears and his breath erratic. Armin hears him pant for a few moments before asking softly, “what happened, Jean?”

“Marco,” he gasps out between sobs, “they shot Marco. He was trying to cross the fucking wall even though he knew it was a damned fool idea and they shot him and he slipped and fell onto the barbed wire and it fucking ripped right through him and then when he hit the ground the guard dogs got to him and I… I only saw half his body left and I-”

Jean’s hand slips from where he’s braced himself against the concrete and he falls to knees facing the wall, body heaving with sobs and trying to muffle his cries with the bottom of his old woolen sweater.

Armin lets Jean cry for a few minutes before he starts singing an old French lullaby, one that his mother used to sing to him when he was little and sobbed all night.

_« Au clair de la lune, mon ami Pierrot,_  
_Prête-moi ta plume, pour écrire un mot._  
_Ma chandelle est morte, je n'ai plus de feu._  
_Ouvre-moi ta porte, pour l'amour de Dieu. »_

Jean’s grief-stricken mind can only understand a handful of the words, but Armin’s voice is clear and the tone soothing. Eventually he collapses onto the ground in front of the wall and breathes. And breathes again.

“Feeling a little better?”

“I… I think so.”

“I’m so sorry, Jean.”

“I know.”

“I wish I could comfort you better than just speaking to you through a wall.”

“It’s alright. This is all I need. Just the fact that you’re here helps.”

 

* * *

 

That night Jean can’t sleep. He tosses and turns in his bed, but all he can see in his mind is the blood pooling on the ground and half of Marco’s body slumped against the side of a building.

Jean curses and cries and eventually takes himself in hand, trying to think of Armin to blot away the memory of Marco in his mind. He has no frame of reference, he has no idea what Armin even looks like, so he pictures a grey shadow standing against a wall, and imagines Armin’s voice, that kind, compassionate voice teaching him English words and German history and he touches himself harder and faster, biting into his knuckles to stop any sound from leaving his mouth and he can feel tears prickling against the corners of his eyes as he finally spills hot into his fist and slumps exhausted onto his mattress.

The next evening he asks Armin what he looks like.

“What do I look like? Well erm… I’m kind of short. And I have longish blond hair.”

“Long-ish?”

“Well not like a girl long. But it’s… sort of at my shoulders?”

“I see.”

“And I’m kind of pale. I don’t like the sun a lot. And I have blue eyes.”

“You sound pretty.”

“I’m not a girl!”

“I never said you were.”

“Some of the boys at school call me pretty. They call me a pretty girl and I don’t like it.  Handsome is a word generally used more for males.”

“They called Nazi soldiers handsome. I don’t think I like that word.”

 

* * *

 

Armin likes to talk. He talks to Jean about visiting Paris and Zürich, learning about Africa and Asia in his school and all the different peoples and cultures of the world. He describes the ocean to Jean, who’s never seen it. How the gulls fly free and shriek overhead as the salt water pounds against the rock and how exhilarating it feels to see the ocean and the sky, all blue and open and so, so _free._

“I’ll take you one day,” Armin says, when he can tell Jean is upset, and he means it.

 

* * *

 

Jean knows full well that what he imagines at night is wrong, so terribly wrong and shameful, to think of a man in that way. Armin would be so disgusted with him. His family would be so ashamed.

But at the dead of night, with one hand wrapped around his cock and thoughts of Armin’s voice running through his head, he can’t bring himself to care.

 

* * *

 

Armin first dreams of Jean the night of his fourteenth birthday. He slips away from his house after the party guests have all gone home and his grandfather retires to his bedroom, and brings a slice of birthday cake with him, vanilla with chocolate icing.

“It’s my birthday today.”

“It is? Congrats Armin. How old are you now?”

“Fourteen.”

“You’re getting old~” Jean teases, even as Armin protests and reminds him firmly that Jean is in fact older than him.

“I brought a slice of my birthday cake. I know I can’t give it to you, but I just wanted to you be a part of it in some way.”

“Tell me what it tastes like,” says Jean quietly, “and I’ll imagine it.”

Armin eats the slice of cake and describes the taste to Jean, and ignores the slow rising burn spreading across his lower stomach.

That night as he lies in bed he dreams of a shadowy figure rolling on top of him, pressing him down onto the mattress and kissing his neck. The figure has soft hair and a finely shaped body, and Armin dreams of caressing his chest and arms with trembling hands, feeling the hard muscles under smooth warm skin.

“I love you, Armin,” says the figure with Jean’s voice, and Armin moans quietly, his breath a soft rattle in his throat.

 

* * *

 

It’s another year before Armin walks up to the wall one night and says firmly, “I think I love you.”

There’s a pause, before Jean makes a spluttered noise.

“Wait, what?”

“I think I love you, Jean.”

“You’ve never met me.”

“I’ve known you for nearly three years. I love you. And I don’t care what anyone says about the fact we’re both men. Please tell me you feel the same way.”

There is a long pause, and Armin is terrified Jean is going to run away and never come back.

“I do,” Jean says, finally, “I do.”

Armin crouches down to the wall and says, “I dream about you a lot. I dream about you pushing me down onto my bed and kissing me, touching me.”

Jean makes a desperate noise, close to a whine, and replies, “God, Armin. _God._ What I would give to have you in my arms right now.”

“One day,” Armin says, “one day we can hold each other and I’ll teach you so many things, I’ll show you the world and we will do everything together, and-”

“-and I’ll hold you and kiss you and I won’t let anything happen to you,” Jean interrupts, and lets out a choked sob, “God. I love you Armin. I love you.”

“I love you too, Jean.”

 

* * *

 

On the tenth of November 1989, when Jean and Armin are both fifteen, Jean wakes up to the sound of a riot occurring in the streets.

He leaps up from his bed and throws on a pair of jeans and an old sweater, pulling on his boots and a scarf.

He knows instinctively from where the noise is coming from, and when he reaches the wall he can see crowds of people with shovels and pickaxes battering against it like a colossal wave. The guards are all gone. The wire is gone. The dogs and shotguns are all gone.

Nothing is stopping him now.

Jean runs as fast as he can and picks up an abandoned axe lying in the street. Together with the others, he hurls himself against the concrete, and where before it had seemed so solid and menacing, the barrier to everything he wanted out of life, now in the morning light he can see it for what it really is; just a thin, fragile strip of concrete separating two halves of what should be whole.

Jean swings the axe again and again, blood pounding in his ears. The wall heaves and cracks under the blows, before eventually he makes several chips deep enough to grab onto.

He looks around him, and sees several people hauling themselves up and over to freedom.

Jean drops the axe, grabs onto the splintered concrete and climbs.

He swings one leg over the top, drops down heavily into another world, and hears the roar of West Berliners welcoming all the people over.

Jean ignores all the friendly hands welcoming him and searches frantically until his eyes spot a short little teenager with shoulder length blond hair, dressed in a white shirt and suspenders. He is holding a book in his slightly shaky hands.

Jean's legs nearly buckle beneath him.

Armin walks over to Jean, looks up into his eyes and says with a hopeful voice, “Jean?”

In response, Jean grabs Armin’s face between his palms and breathes.

 “You’re beautiful.”

 

* * *

 

_They’re twenty six when they watch the world welcome in the new millennium, a cup of coffee each in their hands and eyes locked onto the fireworks display, Jean with his arm wrapped around Armin’s waist._

_“Happy new millennium," Armin smiles, and Jean smiles and kisses him softly on the lips._

_“Happy new millennium, darling.”_

(They’re turning thirty nine this year.)

**Author's Note:**

> So this is probably kind of historically inaccurate since I'm fairly certain there was no point of the Berlin wall where the only barrier up was the wall itself.
> 
> But you know, artistic liberties.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed 80s!Jean and Armin as much as I enjoyed writing them.


End file.
